Tony Black - Gutted

‘Those wee bastards,’ Mac strangled the air in front of him, ‘I swear, I ever get my hands on them they’ll need photographs to put them back together.’

He wasn’t kidding. I hit my Guinness. ‘Well, is the dog gonna be okay?’

‘Hard to say, doing X-rays and that. Vet said this kinda thing’s all too common these days.’

I shook my head. ‘When will we know?’

‘Says we can call tomorrow… Can’t do anything else, Gus.’

He was right. The night’s events suddenly seemed to overwhelm me. I was glad to know the dog had survived this far, felt a surge of relief. The exhaustion hit.

Said, ‘I’m gonna hit the hay, mate.’

Thought the sky was coming down.

‘The fuck’s this… Armageddon?’

It was noise to split eardrums. I jumped out of bed, checked the window. Two hardy types rolling steel barrels off the back of a brewery truck. I say rolling: there was more dropping involved. By the look of things, it was just the start too — they had a lorryful to unload.

I opened the window, yelled, ‘Can you keep it the fuck down?’

The pair halted, shrugged shoulders at each other, then the bigger one puffed out his chest from under an England top, said, ‘Geezer, we don’t have a fahkin’ off switch.’ He put his hands together, scrunched his big padded gloves tight. There was a definite bead in his eye. Like I was having that.

‘All right, fine, sorry to trouble you,’ I said. ‘As you are, lads

… Oh, one thing: use the word “geezer” round me again, I’ll install an off switch in your fucking mouth.’

I put eyes on him for a few seconds. Was enough. He turned back to his mate, who was laughing at him.

As I closed the window I heard the barrels start to roll again. Couldn’t say they were any quieter. Least I’d made my point on that score.

Truth told, I was glad to be out of bed. I’d had a restless night. Kept waking, visions of Tam Fulton’s corpse coming back to me. Over and over. It was going to play on me day and night.

Usually I sleep sound as a pound. Few brews, maybe a Jack Daniel’s or ten, and it’s sayonara, suckers. Till last night it was my one great source of escape. But drink will only take you so far when it’s oblivion you’re after. Blackout’s the house next door, and it was a comfortable one until this shit broke. The thought of trudging on without that safe haven at the end of the trail was something that, to say the least, shook me up.

I put on some Clash. Joe Strummer’s demise still taking the shine off them for me, but I was working through it. Felt more for that man’s passing than my own father’s. True fighter. So few of us left.

Put ‘Train in Vain’ on repeat play as I showered again. Still enough blood on me to turn the soap pink. Had it loud enough to drown out the brewery diddies’ best work.

I had a three-day growth. On some this says style. The old designer-stubble look. Me, it yells ‘Jakey’. Maybe a ‘Get a job, y’bum!’ thrown in. I wasn’t far south of Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea… all I needed was the grey hair to kick in. Still, it was staying for a few more days. My jaw was bruised, tender. Couldn’t match the shiner I had going on with my left eye, but it was running a close second.

‘Real nice look, Gus,’ I told myself.

I put on the old Levi’s again, found a T-shirt with a picture of a Pernod bottle on it — had a stack of them from a failed promo at the pub downstairs. Covered it with a heavy-check flannel. Thought: Kurt Cobain, go spin. Had the man upstaged in the grunge stakes. Tatty All Stars kicking the look down another level. Oh yeah, I was gutter. No boho chic here.

I grabbed my Bensons and headed for the bar.

Mac stood polishing a pint glass. His last business had gone tits up thanks to my involvement with gangsters; minding the bar was helping us both out for now.

‘Morning, Gus.’

‘Is it?’

Sighs. Glass clanged on glass. ‘Get you anything?’

‘Usual.’

‘No’ fancy a bite to eat?’

I’d just sparked up, unplugged the tab, rose quickly. ‘No thanks, usual’s fine… Is that the paper?’

Mac leaned over to pick up the morning paper. The page-one splash made my heart jump: CORSTORPHINE HILL MURDER.

I snatched it from his hand, scanned the text. It was what I thought — the bare bones; the late reporter had got nothing from the filth.

Mac brought over my pint of Guinness, a grim nod towards the paper, said, ‘They were quick.’

‘I tipped them off last night.’

‘You did what?’

‘Called them from the hill.’

‘Is that wise, Gus?’

I looked up, put on my ‘since when was I wise?’ look.

Mac came round from the bar and sat down beside me. ‘Right, c’mon, Dury, what the fuck are you up to here?’

I took the head off my Guinness, tipped back the glass, said, ‘You ever hear of a bloke called Thomas Fulton?’

Mac’s gaze went up to the ceiling. ‘Fulton, nah, can’t say it rings a bell, why?’

‘He’s our corpse. I know the name, just can’t place it.’

‘Common name.’

‘I know, I know. But that cop last night, when he saw who it was he was rattled, really rattled. He got on the blower, called someone, called this Tam bloke Moosey… You know that one?’

‘I knew a bookie once called Moosey, and there was a Moosey in the Riddrie Hilton as well. Haven’t heard hide nor hair of them for years.’

‘Will you ask about?’

‘Aye, sure…’ He sat back, took a sharp intake of breath. ‘But what’s the point in all this? You’ve got a business to run here; you don’t need this aggro.’

I chugged back my pint, rose. ‘It’s got my interest.’

Mac watched me as I put on my coat. He had a pained look on his face, brows pressed hard on his slit eyes. ‘Interest?’

‘Something’s not right.’

He stood up. ‘So fucking what? It’s not your problem.’

Funny thing was, I agreed. ‘I know. I just want to satisfy a… professional curiosity.’

On the street I fell into near-shock: we had sunshine. It bounced off the cobbles and brought back memories of better days. Christ, I’d be listening out for birdsong next. I walked through the close skirting the Holy Wall and onto the main drag of Easter Road. The street was packed, builders mainly. The flats round here had been late to get dragged into the property-price surge. Now they’d shot-up twenty per cent in six months; not even the news of a credit crunch had put a halt to them. Our massive immigrant influx had put such a pressure on housing we were insulated. Least that’s what the estate agents were telling us.

When I was a lad, this street rang with old women in headscarves, dashing between the little grocers’ and butchers’ shops. Now, not a one. Where did they suddenly go? And all those headscarves — must be enough of them lying about to sail Scotland to Australia.

I caught the bus into the city’s mangled, tourist-drenched heart. I made a mental note: never again. The street seethed. Unctuous, lardass businessmen from Nowhere, Arkansas with wives who share a plastic surgeon with Joan Rivers in tow. All screaming out for McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Why I’m slamming Americans, I don’t know. These days, they’re as likely to be Russian, Chinese, French — like it matters in our tragic little globalised world.

My real interest was in what I’d stumbled across on Corstorphine Hill. And I knew who to ask about it; there was even a slight possibility of feathering my own nest at the same time. The money would be very handy; dire straits was the address next door to the Wall. I didn’t want to be the man who ran Col’s pub into the ground in under a year since he’d passed.